Trump Obliterates Obama-Era Ruling, But It’s What the Crowd Did That’s Epic

When President Donald Trump announced to a crowd of supporters in Miami’s Little Haven community Friday that he would be rolling back former President Barack Obama’s “misguided” and “terrible” push to normalize relations with Cuba, the crowd erupted into cheers.

“USA, USA, USA!” his supporters, many of them former Cuban citizens who traveled to the United States to escape deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s brutal tyranny, chanted in unison.

“It’s hard to think of a policy that makes less sense than the prior administration’s terrible and misguided deal with the Castro regime,” Trump said during his speech that day, according to a White House transcript.

“The previous administration’s easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people — they only enrich the Cuban regime,” he continued. “The profits from investment and tourism flow directly to the military. The regime takes the money and owns the industry. The outcome of the last administration’s executive action has been only more repression and a move to crush the peaceful, democratic movement.”

He was 100 percent right. Ever since Obama announced a thawing of relations three years ago, the situation in Cuba has only grown worse, according to Mauricio Claver-Carone, the executive director of Cuba Democracy Advocates.

“Political repression in Cuba is at historic highs; emigration has risen to levels not seen since the 1994 flight of rafters; violations of religious freedom have increased tenfold; and the rate of growth of the so-called ’emerging private sector’ … has turned negative,” he wrote in an op-ed for the Miami Herald late last year.

And just like Trump stated, the biggest beneficiary of Obama’s elimination of sanctions and regulations against Cuba has been the Castro government, Claver-Carone wrote.

It’s no wonder the Cuban exiles in Little Haven were so thrilled by the president’s announcement Friday. Listen to the chanting here:

Trump’s speech lasted for nearly an hour and included a lot of commentary about Cuba, but the part that stuck out like a diamond was this: “I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba.”

And there it is. In one fell swoop, America’s new president has formally undone yet another one of Obama’s glaring mistakes, thus setting the stage for a better world and, eventually, a better Cuba as well.

“USA” indeed.

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